FORMALISTIC APPROACH

GROUP 3
LEADER: EMALENE TABAQUE
MEMBERS: JAKE ROQUERO
CARL STEVE DAVO
SHEENA MAEVE ASOY
JEAN ROSE MAGALAY
BTVTED 1-
B
 Introduction:
The formalistic approach to literary analysis emphasizes the
structural and stylistic element in text, focusing on its form,
language, and devices rather than external factors such as
historical context or authorial intent. In formalism, the emphasis
is on elements such as language, style, symbolism, imagery,
narrative technique, and literary devices to uncover meaning and
understand the work’s artistic qualities.
 Learning Objectives:

At end of the lesson, the learners should be able to;

o deepen one’s understanding on its intrinsic elements such structure,
language, symbolism, literary devices, imagery, style, and narrative
techniques;
o explore the strengths and limitations of Formalism as a Critical Approach in
literary criticism; and
o provide a comprehensive understanding of the Formalistic Approach in
literary criticism.
 Formalist Criticism

• regards literature as unique form of human knowledge that needs to be

examined on its own terms.
• To a formalist, a poem or story is not primarily a social, historical, or
biographical document; it is a literary work that can be understood only by
reference to its intrinsic literary features that is, those elements found in the
text itself.
• The method that formalists use to explore within a poem is close reading, a
careful step-by-step analysis and explication of the text.
 KEY METHOD TO EXPLORE A POEM USING
FORMALIST APPROACH:

• Close Reading
• a careful step-by-step analysis and explication of a
text.
• Purpose of Close Reading:
• To understand how various elements in a literary
text work together to shape its effects on the
reader.
 Formalist Criticism

“The natural and sensible starting point for work in

literary scholarship,” Rene Wellek and Austin Warren
wrote in their influential Theory of Literature,” is the
interpretation and analysis of the works of literature
themselves.”
The Formalist Critic (1951)
Here are some articles of faith I could subscribe to:
That literary criticism is a description and an evaluation of its object.
That the primary concern of criticism is with the problem of unity the kind of whole
which the literary work forms or fails to form, and the relation of the various parts
to each other in building up this whole.
That the formal relations in work of literature may include, but certainly exceed,
those of logic.
That in a successful work, form and content cannot be separated.
That form is meaning.
That literature is ultimately metaphorical and symbolic.
That the general and the universal are not seized upon by abstraction, but got at
through the concrete and the particular.
That literature is not a surrogate for religion.
That, as Allen Tate says, “specific moral problems” are the subject matter of
literature, but that the purpose of literature is not to point a moral.
That the principles of criticism define the area relevant to literary criticism; they do
not constitute a method for carrying out the criticism.
Formalist Criticism emphasizes the form
of a literary work to determine its meaning,
focusing on literary elements and how they
work to create meaning.
• A text is a completely separate and individual
entity.
• Employs close readings of texts and analysis of the
effects of literary elements and techniques on the
text.
Two Major Tenets of Formalism

1. Literary text has “fixed meanings”. This means

they exist independent of any particular reader
or context.
2. The greatest literary texts are “timeless” and
“universal”.
• New Criticism focuses on a literary text itself, aside from
questions about its author or the historical and cultural
contexts of its creation.
• Formalism takes a story, poem or play “on its own terms” so
to speak, viewing it as a self-contained unit of meaning. The
formalist critic therefore tries to understand that meaning
paying attention to the specific form of the text.
• In formalism, the emphasis is on elements such as
language, style, symbolism, imagery, narrative
technique, and literary devices to uncover meaning
and understand the work's artistic qualities.
• This approach often seeks to explore how these
formal elements contribute to the overall aesthetic
and artistic experience of the text, independent of
external factors.
• This approach primarily belongs to the "text-
focused" category.
• It emphasizes the intrinsic elements and
structure of the text itself, rather than focusing
on external factors such as the author's
biography, the reader's interpretation, or the
sociocultural context in which the work was
created.
Typical questions involved in Formalistic Approach are the
following:

• How is the work’s structure unified?

• How do various elements of the work reinforce its meaning?
• What recurring patterns (repeated or related words, images,
etc.) can you find?
• What is the effect of these patterns or motifs?
• Is the structure of the work similar to other well-known
stories, fables, myths, etc.?
• How does repetition reinforce the theme(s)?
• How does the writer’s diction reveal or reflect the work’s
meaning?
• What is the effect of the plot, and what parts specifically
produce that effect?
• What effects are produced?
• Do any of these relate to one another or to the theme?
• Is there a relationship between the beginning and the end of
the story?
• What tone and mood are created at various parts of the
work?
• How does the author create tone and mood?
• What relationship is there between tone and mood and the
effect of the story?
THANK YOU FOR LISTENING!!!